Luna Who?
by AmityRavenclawElf
Summary: What sort of wizard uses science instead of spells? And what sort of Muggle flies around in a blue box? Luna Lovegood was nine years old when she first met the Doctor. From there, it's all good fun.
1. Chapter 1

Luna Lovegood was nine when she first encountered the man in the blue box.

Specifically, she was still wearing the black dress from her mother's funeral. That wasn't much of a time marker, though; she wore the dress for quite a while, just as a reminder. She did tend to forget the most important things...And it was always unpleasant when she remembered again...

But more to the point, on this particular evening, she was barefoot, sitting on an abnormally large derigible plum and imagining that the sun was really a creature that was devouring everything on the horizon. She was tracing its path with her fingers when the Thing dropped from the sky, landing only a hillside away.

Stunned and excited by the new occurance, Luna ran nearer the thing. It was when the hill peaked under her that she saw that the Thing from the sky was a blue Police Box.

How delightfully odd.

She skipped closer to the Police Box, attempting to open the door (Perhaps it could be explored.), but it was locked rather tightly. Then there was a sound behind her- almost a buzzing -and a clipped metallic voice shouted at her, "EXTERMINATE!"

Luna turned and fixed her large eyes on a sort of salt-shaker-shaped hulk of metal, complete with a light just in front and what looked an awful lot like a weapon pointed directly at her face.

"Sorry," she said cordially. "I didn't quite catch that."

"EXTERMINATE!" the creature or object repeated eagerly.

"Oh, goodie," Luna droned, hoping to buy time. She was effectively pinned between the Police Box door and the unfriendly metal thing. "Who are we exterminating?"

"YOU! WILL! BE! EXTERRRRRRMINATED!"

Luna cocked her head sideways, feeling threatened and immediately endangered but not particularly afraid. "Well, you haven't done it yet," she pointed out. "And anyway, we've hardly gotten to know each other."

The light on the metal thing moved a bit, vertically, and the motion caused Luna to wonder whether this was how the creature looked her up and down. "MOVE! AWAY! FROM THE! TARRRRDIS!" the tinny voice ordered.

"And then I get to be exterminated?" she asked, feigning alacrity.

"YOU! WILL! BE! EXTERRRRMINATED!" the thing- she decided to call it a Snorcack -confirmed.

That's when the blue door to the blue box opened, and a hand attached to an arm yanked Luna in and shut the door behind her. The man attached to the arm attached to the hand sighed in relief, and Luna looked past him to see that the blue box was attached to a much larger inside.

"Extension Charm," she observed.

The man looked down at her incredulously. He had an odd sort of face, almost like a cartoon rabbit, with a wide-ish nose and a prominent-ish chin. His hair was grown out and dark, and he seemed young, but in an old sort of way. His eyes were old.

Without warning, the blue box man began waving a sort of wand at her. It made whirring noises and lit up and looked...well, not very wandlike at all.

"Yes. Human," he said. "Definitely human. Who are you?"

"Luna Lovegood," the small girl answered, tucking back her dirty blond hair and holding out her hand to shake.

The man chose, instead, to grab her hand and examine it. "Still definitely human. Did you just stall a _Dalek?"_

Luna considered that. "Possibly. Did you just save my life?"

"Probably. No. Scratch that: Definitely. You were definitely going to die. Oh...Is that rude to say? I can never tell..."

"So let's have tea, then, yeah? My dad's home...He's made pudding."

"He-" The man stopped himself by smacking a hand to his head. "Alright. Rewind:I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor? That's an odd sort of name. That's like a Muggle Healer. Are you a Muggle?" She looked around the Tardis control room and shook her head at the thought. "Odd sort of Muggle."

"I'm not-...Alright. Rewind again. There is a Dalek outside, and..." The TARDIS shook with a sudden blast that sent Luna and the Doctor to the floor. Instantly, the Doctor was back on his feet and running to the controls. "Scratch that," he murmured. "There are _many_ Daleks outside." He started up darting restlessly from lever to lever to switch to screen. Definitely an odd sort of wizard, if he was one.

"Don't you know any spells?" Luna asked conversationally.

"Don't _you?"_ the Doctor deflected back. "You're a witch, aren't you? That's a thing in this universe."

"I haven't got a wand yet," Luna pointed out. "You have."

"I...No, it's not a wand. It's a sonic screwdriver."

"Well, that doesn't sound nearly as useful. Where's your wand?"

"I haven't got one."

"So you _are_ a Muggle."

"No...I mean...Look, I just..."

The Doctor rambled on incoherently like that, but Luna was dazzled by a sudden wonderful thought: "Are you a time lord?"

The Doctor paused at the TARDIS controls and looked back at her, peculiarly. "How do you know about time lords?"

"My mum knew about them. She was an expert."

"Was? So she's dead now?"

Luna nodded blankly.

The Doctor looked as though he were on the verge of saying something, but then the TARDIS controls made a strange noise, and his expression turned to utter exasperation. "Oh, not now..." he murmured almost feverishly.

"What?" Luna asked, approaching him.

"So, your dad," the Doctor said, regaining his energy, "is he cool? Like, really, really...cool?"

Luna just stared at him.

The Doctor rushed on, and Luna observed that he seemed uncomfortable keeping still. "Like, would he mind if-?...Oh, blast it." He pulled a lever to his right, and the TARDIS gave a lurch, almost sending Luna to the ground again, but this time, the Doctor caught her arm.

"What's happening?" she asked, almost to quietly to be heard over the whirring engine.

"We're escaping. No choice. Surrounded by Daleks...I daresay this sort of thing happens to me much too often."


	2. Chapter 2

The next several minutes consisted of the Doctor running about, reading off of screens, and occasionally swearing in Gallifreyan. It was a while before he looked up and noticed that the little blond-haired girl, Luna Lovegood, was sitting on the floor, reading from a book that she had not been holding when she entered the TARDIS.

"Oi!" the Doctor called out, and Luna looked politely up at him with her big, batty eyes. "Where'd you get that?"

"Your library," she answered dreamily. "Do you know the hallway changes? I half-thought it was a wrackspurt-"

"A what?"

"...a wrackspurt, messing with my brain, but it wasn't. The corridors really change."

"Why were you in the corridors? Do you know the sorts of things that come out of corridors?"

Luna waved the book in the air demonstratively.

"No, I mean _besides_ that-"

"What are you doing?" the girl digressed, tucking the book under her arm and getting to her feet.

"I'm trying to find someplace to land us that won't result in a time paradox or a Dalek attack...Don't touch anything!" he added as Luna neared the controls. She obediently folded her hands behind her back, book tightly clasped.

"I don't think you're doing a very good job," she confided.

"Yes, I know that! Thank you!"

The TARDIS gave another lurch, sending both girl and Doctor tumbling to the floor. Both were up again soon enough. Luna, after locating her borrowed book on the floor, cracked it open again and strode out of the Doctor's line of sight. He was honestly too distracted to stop her.

"Mr. The Doctor!" her voice called out. "Sir, I think you should try this lever."

"What lever?"

"Over here. This book says-"

The TARDIS gave yet _another_ lurch...or, well, sort of a half-lurch. It started to lurch, and then it unexpectedly righted itself and started sailing swiftly towards some unknown destination.

"What?" the Doctor said aloud.

"Sorry," came the girl's voice from somewhere on the floor. "I touched something."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I was pointing at the lever and the TARDIS moved..."

"What lever?" the Doctor hurried over and helped the girl to her feet. Her eyes were impossibly bright.

She pointed out the lever that she had accidentally pushed. "Maybe the TARDIS wanted me to push it."

"The TARDIS-?" The Doctor was surprised. Most companions didn't immediately decide that the TARDIS was capable of conscious decision.

Not that this girl was a companion.

Still, all the same...

Luna continued: "Well, it sent me to the library, helped me find this book, and then it made me push the lever."

The Doctor placed a soothing hand on his TARDIS. "What are you doing, old girl?" he murmured to it.

He received no answer; instead, they slammed to a halt.

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door warily. The outside seemed safe enough- a cobblestone pathway between rows of warm-looking shops and taverns. He stepped out, slipping his hand into that of the small girl, who followed curiously behind him.

"Out you go...I don't suppose this is Diagon Alley?"

The girl shook her head.

"Don't suppose you have any idea where this is?"

She shook her head again. "Can't you find all that out?"

"Of course!" He released her hand in order to ruffle her hair before taking off at a run toward the nearest tavern.

Luna's expression turned contemplative, and she turned to reenterer the TARDIS.

"Come on then, Lovegood!" the Doctor called.

"I'm going back to the library!" she answered back. "Maybe the TARDIS has another book for me!"

"Right, then! Just stay where you are once you get there." He disappeared around a corner, then.

Luna turned on her heels and found that somebody had shut the TARDIS door, and it was now tightly locked once more. "Mr. The Doctor?!" she called out, then turned around another ninety degrees to find her path blocked by a man in a black trenchcoat and top hat.

"The Great Intelligence has need of you," the man droned, reaching for her as though he planned to sieze her head like a crystall ball.

Luna looked around and found herself entirely encircled by other men in trenchcoats, although the others lacked faces.

Trapped again. She was back to square one.


	3. Chapter 3

Luna approached the nearest faceless man in wonder.

"I suppose we all have need of great intelligence," she mused in response to The Man With The Face's ominous remark. "I've never heard it in reverse, though." She moved on to the next faceless man. "What does that mean: Great Intelligence had need of me?"

"I need a versatile and youthful mind," The Man With The Face replied gravely. "This form does little for me, now."

The circle of faceless men tightened, drawing Luna closer to the speaker.

She kept as much distance as she could, but also scrutinized the man. "Are you The Great Intelligence, then? What a funny name."

"I-"

"Not that it's not admirable. 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure', as they say."

"I-"

"Have you met Rowena Ravenclaw? She had great intelligence, too."

_"I_ am a being of unspeakable power."

_Is this actually working? _Luna wondered. _Is he still talking? _She oriented herself nearer to the TARDIS door, all the while keeping up a steady babble. "The mind _is_ a powerful thing. 'Knowledge is power'. That's another phrase. There are plenty of those, really. 'Mind like a steel trap'. 'Tamper with the deepest mysteries- the source of life, the essence of self-'. 'The mind is a palace'."

Then, The Man With The Face grabbed ahold of Luna. The moment his hand touched the skin of her upper arm, a bolt of pain shot up her spine to her brain, and her screams filled the alley.

...

The people in the tavern were very nice. Except, the Doctor noted, they weren't exactly "people". And they tried to kill him.

But the beverages were good.

"Yes! Rum!" he exclaimed to a barmaid with tentacles growing out of her face. "Brilliant! Loads of rum! I love rum. What exactly is rum? I used to know..." _Alas_, he thought, _I used to know a lot of things, but the mind can get slippery, especially where alcoholic beverages are concerned._

The barmaid clanked the jug onto the bar in front of him.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said more quietly. "Thank you. Say...what planet is this?"

The barmaid gave a snort and walked away (slunk away, really).

"Fine then," the Doctor muttered to no one. A smile was tugging at the corners of his lips. "Force me to do a bit of exploring, why don't you."

That was when one of the bar patrons grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder, quite roughly, and turned him around. "Doctor!" the creature yelled, his countenance unfriendly...or was that just his face? Hard to tell.

The Doctor responded with a smile and a sly movement that transitioned the creature's strong hand from his shoulder to his jug of rum. "Yes. That's me. Who are you? Wait, let me guess...You're the guy in charge, yes? Of course you are. You've got loads of badges...gotta love badges...Say, where am I?"

The creature snarled, hefted an axe, and again yelled, "Doctor!"

"Got it. Not friends." The Doctor ran, weaving between groups of creatures and out the tavern door. The creature with the badges did not cease his pursuit.

The time lord was nearly to the TARDIS when he saw the little blond girl, Luna, collapsed just an inch away from the blue box door. Again the Doctor cursed in Gallifreyan before scooping the child up, fumbling the TARDIS door open, entering, and shutting the door behind them.

Once they were shut in, the girl opened her batty eyes. "What happened?" she asked in her dreamy voice.

"I was going to ask you that," the Doctor rambled, setting the girl down on her feet and rushing to the TARDIS controls. "I don't know. I was in a pub and you passed out."

"I remember you leaving..." Luna pondered a bit. "I remember it feeling like something sucked the breath out of me, or like I caught a thousand wrackspurts all at once."

"Bad News Planet," the Doctor concluded breathlessly. "Let's go."

The TARDIS jolted skyward.

Luna sat down cross-legged. "Thank you, Mr. TARDIS," she sighed, petting the wall.

"'Mister'? She's a girl," the Doctor corrected the child incredulously.

Luna angled her head a bit and smiled. "How can you tell?"

"I-" The Doctor was briefly stumped. "She just is."

"Is TARDIS her whole name?" Luna asked.

"No. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Her name is-" The Doctor stopped himself. "She...erm...doesn't have a name."

Luna opened her mouth to speak, but then she went very white and fell limp.

"Lovegood?!" Panicked, the Doctor ran to her side.

She was out cold, but her mouth began to speak on its own, with her voice: "I'd like to speak to the Doctor."

The time lord's face darkened, and his tone was gravely confident, his voice lowered, when he answered: "I'm listening, whoever you are."

...

Luna's eyes opened to the Doctor's pale face. He was staring at her, and she didn't remember falling asleep. She was also unsure as to why the Doctor looked so grim. There must have been something dreadfully wrong with her. Narrowing her eyes, she hazarded a guess: "Wrackspurts, right?"

The Doctor shook his head. "The Great Intelligence is now living inside your head," he told her. "Apparently, you're a being of great power."

"I'm a witch," Luna replied with a perplexed look.

"Half," the Doctor answered cryptically. Then he sprang to his feet, suddenly all energy again. "Alright, then, Lovegood, sit tight and think happy thoughts."

Luna stood as well. "Alright then. What'll you do?"

"The Great Intelligence has given me coordinates, and he really won't be glad he did."

"Coordinates where?"

With one hand on the TARDIS console, the Doctor turned around and smiled like the mad man he was. "Your mind," he said. Then the TARDIS sailed off.


	4. Chapter 4

"You're going to land the TARDIS in my mind?" Luna asked, looking truly surprised for the first time today.

"Going to try to," the Doctor panted back as he literally sprinted about the controls.

"Will I still get to walk around and things?"

"Luna Lovegood, you sound like Martha."

"Martha who?"

"Oh, _now_ you do the thing." He yanked at a lever.

"How does that work? The mind thing?"

The Doctor paused just long enough to answer, "A mind is like a TARDIS: bigger on the inside and many places at once. But the most important thing for you to remember, Lovegood, is that it's _your _mind. The Great Intelligence can't put anything there that isn't there already, but once it's there, it's a weapon that he can use against you."

Luna blanched but nodded pensively. "It works the other way, too, though, doesn't it?"

"Exactly!" the Doctor agreed brightly, and he ruffled her hair once more before returning to his sprinting and lever-pulling. "Now, we need a landing strip here...Can you think up maybe a really sunny meadow?"

Luna conjured up all of her focus. Blue sky, loads of grass and flowers...bunnies...

The TARDIS slammed into the ground, jarring her.

"Oh dear." The Doctor scratched at his prominent chin. "Sorry about that. Now, let's go, Ravenclaw!"

"What?"

"What? Come on, get a move on!"

Luna clambered to her feet and met the Doctor at the door.

"Think meadowy thoughts," the time lord reminded her before opening the door...

...to a beautiful, green meadow.

Luna sighed in relief and followed the Doctor out into the sun and the blue.

Then she saw the woman. She was tall, with long, brown hair, and clad in a bright blue sundress. She danced about and laughed as though the wind were whispering wonderful things in her ears.

Luna inhaled. "Mum?" she called out, but the familiar woman didn't hear her.

At the same time, however, the Doctor, in a perplexed voice, called out, "Clara!"

Luna shrieked louder, "Mummy!"

The woman at last turned to look at her daughter, only to vanish into thin air immediately after.

"No!" Luna shouted, then concentrated on conjuring her mother up again. No matter how hard she focused, nobody appeared. She felt tears sting her eyes, which was new for her; she didn't normally cry. That was her dad's job. Her job was to stay happy.

With this in mind, she shuddered and wiped the tears away. She could feel herself becoming angry, but she suppressed it.

Suddenly, however, the ground where her mother had been standing split open, sending a crack travelling through the rolling hills and separating Luna and the Doctor.

"Lovegood!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Calm down!"

"I am!" she replied as the chasm betwixt them grew.

"Only on the outside," the Doctor called. "We're on the inside."

Luna nodded slowly. "That makes sense." She felt another tear run down her cheek, and she allowed it, focusing instead on breathing, making peace inside of her.

The ground stopped splitting, but the Doctor was out of sight. Before her was a vast sea. She pursed her lips and shouted out, "This is my mind!", and her voice echoed and reverberated throughout all corners of the world on which she now stood. "You can't win inside my own mind!"

That was when she experienced the familiar breathless sensation and passed out again.

...

When the ground stopped moving, the Doctor found himself in an odd sort of marsh...Well, "odd" was a relative term. It had all of the murkiness characteristic of your run-of-the-mill marsh, but it was filled with whispering voices and shimmering faces that appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye, like wil-o-the-whisps.

The Doctor straightened his bow tie and was about to enter the marsh when a familiar voice spoke behind him: "They're wrackspurts."

Turning around, the Doctor saw Clara Oswald, only dressed in a blue gown and drifting like a ghost or a siren. "What?" he said.

"The voices," Clara answered. "They're wrackspurts. The glowing things are nargles."

"Clara?" the Doctor murmured. _Alright, so there's another version of Clara floating about who is Luna Lovegood's mother, _he thought._ So what? That's how time streams work. _"What are wrackspurts and nargles?"

"When the wrackspurts get louder, you'll know you're close," Clara said, her form flickering, "but don't listen to them, or you'll lose your mind."

"Funny thing, a mind," the Doctor rambled. "Always a thing you find when you're not looking for it."

"Clever boy," Clara sighed, then vanished.

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor called out plaintively. Then he squared his shoulders, shook out his arms, and started into the marsh.

...

Luna woke with a start and found herself bound in a room that resembled her own, only gigantic and dark. She stood, faintly aware of the cold against her bare feet, and stuggled physically and mentally against the ropes that bound her wrists._ This is my mind, and in my mind, I choose NO ROPES._

It seemed that the darkness was laughing at her. The voice was very deep and eerie. "Of course I can not kill you," it mused, "but I can keep you trapped here, in the midst of your greatest fears, tucked away within the shadowy regions of your mind."

Luna took a deep breath and thought that over. "Honestly, trapped is trapped, isn't it? Why go to the trouble of keeping me in a nightmare when you could just let me stumble about aimlessly? You don't need me to suffer."

The reply was brief and malevolent: "I get bored."

Then a chill fell over Luna, and something crept out of the shadows.

It was a human, and, despite the dim lighting, it seemed familiar.

"Dad?" Luna said cautiously.

Then the figure fell to its knees and started convulsing, morphing, growing. Horns sprouted from its head, and its back arched, and fangs grew from its face.

Luna didn't hesitate to run, but it was like dream-running; her position in relation to everything else in the room didn't change. Not really.

So instead, when the Crumple-Horned Snorcack bounded toward her, she sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, and dreamed of sunlight.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor was able to ignore the wrackspurts up to the point at which they started whispering names.

_"Rose Tyler."_

_"Martha Jones."_

_"Donna Noble."_

Then, like a fool, he stopped. "How are those names here?" he demanded. "This is Luna's mind! She doesn't know those names."

Then the voices changed:

_"When was the last time you danced?"_

_"He never looked at her twice."_

_"Donna Noble has been saved."_

"LUNA LOVEGOOD DOES NOT KNOW ANY OF THIS!" the Doctor shouted.

The deep voice of the Great Intelligence replied, seemingly emitted by the trees: "No, but I do."

"You're inside her mind," the Doctor protested. "Nothing can exist inside her mind that she doesn't know about."

"She put the wrackspurts here, which are creatures which have access to one's thoughts. I only made use of them."

_"Goodbye, sweetie."_

"I'm not listening!" the Doctor declared firmly, then strode on, reaching for his screwdriver to run a scan on his surroundings.

His screwdriver was not in his pocket. He backtracked, searching the ground, and one of the glowing creatures appeared right in front of his face before vanishing.

"Nargles are certainly mischievous creatures, aren't they?" the Great Intelligence intoned gaily.

The Doctor's face went almost blank, which was never good. "Give me back my screwdriver, and, while you're at it, leave Luna Lovegood alone, or you'll really regret it."

"I will?" the voice chuckled, and, suddenly, hundreds of glowing faces appeared all around the Doctor, snarling.

On this cue, the time lord chose a direction and ran.

...

Instead of opening them, Luna shut her eyes tighter. The Snorcack was breathing down into her face, and there didn't seem to be any light outside.

"Mr. The Great Intelligence?" she said quietly.

"Yes?" the voice replied.

"Sir, you can't kill me inside my mind."

"I can't?" The voice feigned disappointment.

"No." _Her_ voice cracked.

"Why can't I?"

Luna found the courage to open her eyes, then. The Snorcack was still there, still terrifying in theory, but she stood and placed a gentle hand on its nose. The creature stilled. "Because this is my mind," she whispered, crooning, sort of, to the beast. Then she wrapped her arms around its neck and pressed her face into its side. It tensed, but she remained where she was. "My mind," she said again, "and I'm not afraid of you."

The Snorcack disappeared, and the world seemed to swirl around Luna.

She shouted into the abyss, "My mind won't hurt me!"

The Great Intelligence answered smugly, "I will."

Then she ground vanished from under her, and she was falling.

_"I'm not falling," _she decided aloud. _"I'm flying."_

And her surroundings chose to agree with her; suddenly, she realized that gravity was going the other way, and she was really only flying upside-down.

"Silly girl," the Great Intelligence said impatiently. "_Everything_ here will hurt you."

Then she landed in a meadow- a different meadow than before -full of bright red flowers like something out of a Muggle film...and Daleks. Lots and lots of Daleks.

"EXTERMINATE!" they all shouted at the same time, and Luna smiled a little because she'd been through this before; Daleks were so, so easy to stall.

Then she saw that they weren't aiming at her; they were aiming at her parents. Her mother, small and beautiful, and her father, lean and smiling. Oblivious. And then every weapon went off at once, and they were gone.

"No!" Luna screamed, and thunder and lightning tore the sky. She crumpled to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. _It's not real, _she reminded herself, and the words rang audibly here. _It's not real._

"It's very real," the Great Intelligence argued. "Your reality exists in your mind. Unfortunately, I own it now."

And then Luna felt a bit of very real fear, because she knew exactly what existed in her mind. She knew _exactly_.

On cue, a swarm of cornish pixies assaulted her, tugging at her hair and scratching at her face, aiming, it seemed, for her eyes. She curled into fetal position.

"You said that your mind won't hurt you," the Great Intelligence said, "but that's all it will do. It will torture you and tear at you and plague you forever, and there's nothing you can do about it."

_THIS ISN'T REAL! _Luna's mind yelled, and Luna, herself, called out, "The question, then, becomes: What's in it for you? What do you want with me?"

"I've told you: The Great Intelligence needs a new host. Your fear is merely for fun."

"By _host_, you mean _body_. So you can control me in here. Right?"

There was no reply, but Luna's heartbeat had accelerated, and it rocked the world, blurring lines everywhere.

_"A mind is like a TARDIS,"_ Luna whispered, gradually working it out. _"It's bigger on the inside and many places at once. So right now, I'm inside of another me. A me that you're controlling."_

"Very clever," the Great Intelligence intoned blandly.

Luna stood, and the cornish pixies promptly heightened their attack on her. "Mr. The Great Intelligence, you shouldn't have brought me here," she told him softly, "because I'm about to help me destroy you." Then she ran into the darkest shadow and disappeared.

...

When the Doctor cleared the last of the trees, he found himself in the same meadow as before, TARDIS and all.

"What?" he said allowed.

Clara appeared to him, then. Her expression was far more urgent, this time, and she handed him a stick...no, a wand. "Take this," she ordered him.

"But...No," he protested. "I'm not a wizard. I don't need a wand; I need my screwdriver."

"You can't get your screwdriver back until Luna gets her mind back," Clara said quickly. "You have to find her, and you have to give her this."

"Where is she?" the Doctor asked.

"The wind will take you there. The Great Intelligence wants you to find him. Run." Clara placed her hands on either side of his face and said, earnestly, "Run, you clever boy, and find my daughter."

...

When Luna emerged from the shadow, she found her bare feet smacking against some sticky sort of mud.

_Quick sand? _was the first thing she thought, and immediately after, the mud started to swallow her.

_Stupid, _she cursed herself, and a chorus of insults hurled themselves at her from the darkness._ Stupid girl. How can you win? You will fail. The Great Intelligence will always be stronger._

"That's not me," Luna said serenely. "I can tell when it's my voice and when it's yours." She had sunk to her knees, now, and the sand was speeding up.

_Fine, then, I'll just sink, _she decided. _I'll sink into the underneath and see where I land. You can't scare me, Mr. The Great Intelligence._

And then her mouth was under, and her nose, and her eyes, and the top of her head, and she landed...Well, it wasn't really landing. It was more like hanging suspended in darkness. But she could breath, so that was good. She swam through the dark, and then a scream cut through the air, startling her so much, she couldn't focus on her inner peace. She started to fall.

The scream was her mother's. It was the same scream that she'd heard that afternoon when she went to call her mother to lunch only to find...

_This. Is. Not. Real._

Luna stopped thinking, stopped remembering, stopped fearing, stopped everything, and just breathed. She put her mind on pause and focused on air. Her falling stopped, the screaming stopped, but the Great Intelligence's voice started to speak.

"Clearing your mind, little girl? Thanks. I needed that."

And Luna felt as though some sort of potion had been spilled all over her, because her skin began to burn, and all she could do was writhe in midair. "Ssssssstop," she panted.

"Do you want to see the you that you are in this time?" the Great Intelligence purred, and then a light seemed to come on and Luna saw...her own face. Only, she was older, and there were scars, and she was dirty and slumped against a mirror, panting and looking haunted.

"Luna?" the voice belonged to a boy with brown hair and a kind, round face.

"Neville," the older Luna said in a distant voice, trying to maintian a smile while an all-out war went on inside of her mind.

"Are you alright?" the boy, Neville, asked. "Was it the Carrows?"

"I'm-"

The light went out, and young Luna found herself suspended in darkness again.

"Dear me," the Great Intelligence droned with mock-pity. "I think you've just been caught by the Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters?" Luna repeated, alarmed. _Voldemort comes back?_

But then she regained control of herself. This was what he wanted. He was thriving on her fear.

Whatever potion or acid that had been pouring on her skin began to itch and burn at her muscles. She let loose a sob. "You c-can't kill me inside my mind," she said, and she was mildly chagrined to find that she was sort of whimpering. "I saw myself grown up. That means I m-make it through this."

"Yes, but you've seen what you become," the Great Intelligence replied, almost soothingly. "Does it matter?"

Luna felt her eyelids shutting.


End file.
